Aleppo Evacuation Nearing Completion, Rebels Hold One Position

Wind and sleet made it an inconvenient trip, but the evacuation of the rebels from the north Syrian city of Aleppo continued apace today, with reports from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that effectively the rebels were down to a single position.

There were some reports the effort had finished, though the UN said they couldn’t confirm the completion of the evacuation yet, and it appeared the buses were still running into the night. The rebels said that the bad weather was the only reason they weren’t already done.

Evacuation of Aleppo began Wednesday of last week, though there were a couple of days where the buses barely ran because the concurrent evacuation of Shi’ite villages in Idlib Province had also ground to a halt. When the buses were running, however, they got tens of thousands of people out in really short order.

US officials complained the absence of UN monitors was delaying the process, though the deal to get the monitors in was completed a couple of days ago, and officials have conceded that the monitors likely won’t arrive until the evacuation is already finished.